


A meeting

by WahlBuilder



Series: Doctor and Thief [1]
Category: Thief (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Insomnia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 20:33:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2595539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alec is a doctor working in the City. To him, the City is full of shadows. One night a shadow falls on his balcony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A meeting

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [A Meeting - Доктор и Вор. История первая. Встреча](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7347298) by [Altra_Realta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Altra_Realta/pseuds/Altra_Realta)



The City never slept.

It never slept, it screamed and raged and thrashed, its bones crumbling under the guards’ feet, breaking with dry sounds. Echoes walked in shadows of the streets, echoes clad in darkness and death and famine.

The City’s screams and cries woke Alec up almost every night, the City’s heart banging on his door, its moans of pain filling his ears.

The City raged and hurt and pained, no matter how hard Alec tried to heal it, to soothe its pain with his hands, his scalpel, with his words when nothing else could save a life.

He lived on the threshold of dim, dirty light and shadow so dark it took physical forms that sometimes cried for help and sometimes tried to pull him further into the darkness. From time to time the City tried to rob him, not that he had lots of things in his poor house, not that he hadn’t been giving the City everything he had.

He never asked for payment and his heart would stop for a moment when shadows brought him food or herbs or a few coins — and sometimes it was a knife or two. The food he gave away, leaving only a few crumbs for himself barely enough to drag him through another day.

The blockade was killing the City more effectively than the Gloom.

The City was dying, with screams and claws and knives, and sometimes, when the sun poured its sick light over the sick streets, a thought struck Alec that he helped the City only for it to suffer yet another day. And another. And another.

He was sitting on the balcony, the wood squeaking and groaning, daily deeds almost done. He was writing in a journal, a thick notebook in old leather drained of colours — one of the few things of value he had.

It had been a long day, and sleep ran away from Alec, for the City was dying around him and crying and moaning into his ears.

He noted that he almost ran out of ink and he sighed because he had no money to buy a new bottle. He made a note to himself to check his storage of herbs and see if he could make something to write in.

The City was groaning around him, hushed voices worming their way into Alec’s mind, words unintelligible like those of a man in fever.

The voices died out and a shroud of silence fell on the City, the air still as if the world waited to be broken.

Alec’s mind was clear, moonlight sharpening his thoughts, fleshing out corners of all things, and deepening the shadows. His mind was so clear he started losing the sense of self, his bones turning into the bones of the City, his blood flowing over the old stones.

Suddenly loud footsteps thuded near and above him, closer, closer, like thunder of a storm approaching. Alec heard his house growling in anger, and then something large and heavy fell onto his balcony, knocking the bottle of ink off the crate Alec used as a table. The ink spilled like blood, glistening under the moon.

Aled stared, transfixed, at the shadow that had taken a solid form and landed before him, and he started when a soft moan fell from the shadow and spilled on his hands. Alec hurried to the figure and carefully rolled them onto their back.

He saw that this being had black hands but Alec’s own were pale and calloused from scalpels and bore burns from acidic herbs. It was a man, clad in many layers of darkness and secrets and shadows, and he was in pain. Alec tried to open the man’s clothes to check if his ribs were broken but there were too many layers, tightly fitting clothes, and a corset blocking his way.

He decided to take the man inside, least somebody was after him.

And that’s when the black-handed stranger’s eyelids fluttered.

Alec froze.

He stared into the eyes of the City itself, one of them dark as stones that were wet with tears and blood, the other of strange colour, the colour of moonlight and disease and murky whispers that kept Alec awake even when he was tired to the bones.

The man groaned, and his eyes closed, brows furrowing. Alec shook his head, clearing it of weird thoughts, and lifted the man carefully. The stranger was slim, and Alec thought of agile shadows and long fingers caressing precious stones, finding weak spots in any lock.

Alec brought him easily into the house and lowered him on the bed. He manouvered the man so that he could remove his cloak. He noticed a strange weapon of sorts, like an overly-complicated mace, and he cautiously removed it from the man.

The stranger fell into uneasy slumber, not even noticing when Alec unstrapped belts that held a pouch on the man’s thigh.

Alec hesitated before removing a scarf that was hiding lower half of the man’s face, but then he undid it, and the dark cloth revealed a pale face with a hint of stubble. A weird scar twisted the left part of the face, it looked like something blowed up into the man’s face. But still he was attractive, Alec noted. He shook his head again. He proceeded to undo complicated knots on the corset, then removed the boots and the rest of the dark clothes.

The man was lanky, with many scars and too pale skin of a person who didn’t walk in the light of day but hid in shadows of night. He stirred and released a soft moan. Alec touched his torso, shoulders, arms, legs but everything was in place and not broken, and Alec smiled. A few bruises already started to darken, striking on the pale skin, like stormclouds obscuring the face of the moon.

Alec went to his herbs and opened a jar with ointment. He carefully applied the ointment on the man’s skin, a faint aroma of herbs filling the small room, filling Alec with thoughts of different places and different times, his touch feather-like over the bruised patches of skin.

Finishing his duty, he covered the man with a blanket, hiding him from preying eyes of the moon and shadows. Alec rubbed his fingers, smelling herbs, closed the jar and put it back on its proper place.

He went to check the lock on the door, not that it could hide him from the darkness. He returned to the bedroom, checking on the darkness embodied, lying on his bed.

Alec hoped that he was lucky enough to wake up in the morning.

There was no other place for him to sleep on, and Alec got another blanket, wrapping himself in it and sitting down on the floor. He was used to sleeping in unusual fashion. He propped himself on the wall and closed his eyes.

His dreams were full of the City’s eyes, watching him with a faint smirk on dark lips.

Alec woke up not with a sore back but on actual bed, on his bed. He blinked a few times, not knowing if the shadow he held in the night was real.

He eyed the bedroom, and his gaze fell on the small table beside the bed.

A bottle full of dark ink was on it, pressing down a piece of paper. Alec reached his hand and fished the paper from under the bottle.

_'Sorry I spilled your ink._

_You’re bloody heavy, by the way.’_

Alec breathed a soft laugh.

The sun poured its light on the City, but it only made the shadows thicker, and somewhere among those shadows were a figure of darkness, wearing a faint scent of Alec’s herbs.

**Author's Note:**

> For [pineapplento](http://pineapplento.tumblr.com/) because I love your Thief OC and I love you =3 I was kinda.. carried away.


End file.
